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User fees for trash

Alderman Isaac Carothers has contacted the city OMB to ask them to investigate charging for trash pickup. The current no-fee pickup system acts as a $160M annual subsidy from large buildings (which pay for their own pickups — condos are supposed to get reimbursed, but we don’t) to single family houses and small flats. Similarly, not charging a user fee for trash pickup misses an opportunity to use prices as an incentive to reduce waste, as many cities — most famously Seattle — have begun to do by charging for each bag picked up.